


Little Deals

by Insecuriosity



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Contracts, Demon Deals, Demon Summoning, Gen, Paperwork, Spoilers for Arctic cruise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insecuriosity/pseuds/Insecuriosity
Summary: Wallace the Walrus had a dream; to be the captain of a magnificent ship with a tightly knit and loyal crew! He worked his whole life to make his dream come true.... and now he lives off a meagre pension with a body broken from physical labour, with his dream far out of reach.Thankfully, for the truly desperate, there's a different way of getting your heart's desire fulfilled...





	Little Deals

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to tumblr user frickfracksnatchisback as they reminded me of this story, and that I wanted to edit and post it here.

Snatcher didn’t get summoned often. It was possible for people to do so, of course, but unlike other powerful spirits Snatcher wasn’t into playing ‘genie’ to get his souls. Whenever someone managed it, Snatcher made sure to destroy them so thoroughly that nobody would dare to summon a spirit with the same circle again. 

Still, as long as he had incredibly power, there would be idiots dragging him away from his home to try and get him to fulfil their every wish. At the very least, this latest someone had clearly done their research before summoning Snatcher. Demon-ward charms, fire sprites creating a barrier around the summoning circle, and cans of blue spray paint.  
Right in front of the circle, halfway sunken away in a creaky leather one-seat, was the summoner; a blobby walrus with wary eyes and a missing tusk. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted off him in large clouds, and there were more than a few signs that he was not taking very good care of himself. The walls behind him were covered in sailing paraphernalia, and stained with years of old cigar smoke. 

“Looks like I got myself a pro demon wrangler on my hands!” Snatcher said, probing at the barrier that was keeping him in place. “Have you done this before? If you have, I’ll say it right now; if you don’t have a soul, we’re not striking a deal, capiche? I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a soul, and that’s being generous!”

“I still got my soul. Not planning on getting rid of it anytime soon either.” The Walrus replied dourly. He was holding a binder that was bursting to the seams with papers, with colourful little tabs separating the stacks. “From what I’ve heard, you’re usually the one offering deals, but there’s nothing in the rules that says it can’t go the other way ‘round. So, I got you this deal here.”

With a hefty flipper, he pulled a thick file out of his binder and turned it around so Snatcher could see the walls of legal text filling every inch of the paper. Snatcher almost couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a contract – an actual thought-out legally binding modern contract! 

With a flick of the Walrus’ flipper it sailed through the barrier, and Snatcher made true to his name as he plucked it from the air as quickly as humanly possible. Oh, it was a beauty. He hadn’t seen a contract like this in years! The people that summoned him or stepped into his traps rarely understood the art of legal paperworks, and the few of them that tried to out-attorney him quickly found themselves outmatched. But this, this was something Snatcher could have written himself in his heyday. 

“My wish is in chapter one. Chapter two’s about what I’m offering.” The Walrus said. “Take yer time readin’ it through, I got time.”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Snatcher replied with a grin. With a contract this elaborate, chances were that he wouldn’t be able to find a loophole, but… well…that was alright for once. He liked picking through contracts, and it had been far too long since he’d seen a capable contract that wasn’t one he’d written himself.  
The fat little walrus wanted a capable ship and crew to cross even the wildest and iciest seas, and there were so many wonderful little clauses attached! Annulment of the deal, should the ship ever sink or become significantly damaged. Annulment of the deal, should the ship be too small for the crew, or should the crew be too small to work the controls. Annulment if the crew mutinied-…

Oh yes, it was going to be quite a task to fenagle something worthwhile out of this contract. Most likely the little blob only wanted to offer meaningless ores or gems, and Snatcher wasn’t going to be fulfilling ANY wish for that kind of paltry payment. But if it got him a soul-…  
He flipped to the second chapter, only a single page this time, and stared down at what he’d be getting if he gave the Walrus what he wanted. 

“My _freedom_?!” Any humour dropped out of his tone, and he could feel his fluff begin to puff up in anger. “You have SOME nerve, lard-blob! Do you really think you’re going to outsmart me with something this simple? In my own game?! I’m not signing a contract to get something I already HAVE! I’m willing to hear you out, but you better offer me something more worthwhile, or I’ll be out of this circle and at your throat within now and the next MINUTE!”

“Yer welcome to try.” The walrus said, and was that… was that a _smirk_ ? Did this stupid animal really think that a shoddy little circle was going to keep him safe?

Snatcher was going to enjoy eating this guy’s soul. He might even forego swallowing it and subject it to a good hard chewing session instead, just for the indignity! “Well then! Easy soul for me! SAY GOODBYE!”  
He stretched and let his power search out the wall surrounding him. Fire-sprite walls were impenetrable for someone like him but they always had their limits, and Snatcher had all the time in the world to find those limits! 

He stretched up and phased through the ceiling of the Walrus’ apartment, intending to quickly hop over that wall and dive right back down onto that disrespectful tub of lard - … only to smash head-first into another fire-sprite wall. A horizontal one. A neat and tidy roof of impenetrable wall. And there were no. gaps.  
He dove back down, through the walrus’ apartment and into the basement, where he encountered the exact same thing. He’d actually been trapped. He would have found it really funny actually – if it hadn’t happened to him! 

The walrus was still right where Snatcher had left him, staring out from under his bushy eyebrows with a tired gaze and a smug little smile. “You ready to sign that contract now?” He asked. “It’s a real good deal for a thing like you – I even promise not to tell anyone how to trap you ‘n do the same thing I did here. Probably wouldn’t be good for the world to have an on-call genie around…’N I bet the fire sprite would get upset at gettin’ summoned all over the place.”

Snatcher didn’t answer immediately, too busy trying to hold back the anger that was trying to burst out. It wouldn’t do to waste his energy while he was still trapped. “I _will_ get out you know, and when I do I’m going to try out all the ways I can hurt a soul, and then I’ll spend the rest of my year inventing some new ways! If you value that blobby soul of yours, you will let. Me. GO.”

“You’re not getting out unless you sign the contract. A thing like you can probably get through those walls with enough time, but by then my body ‘n soul will be long gone. I got nothin’ to lose by waiting.” The walrus replied. “So make yer pick. Sign the contract, or have fun waitin’ for those barriers to run out.”

Snatcher seethed with impotent rage. He couldn’t afford to wait here until the barriers dissolved! He had a home to return to, books to read, a manor to guard, SOULS to eat! Snatcher floated lower and looked the Walrus in the eye, willing the pure fury in his eyes to convince the little moron to change his mind.  
When the walrus only lit a new cigar and puffed a new cloud of smoke into the room, Snatcher grabbed the contract where he had dropped it, and began to read. Genuinely read, instead of skim for keywords and loopholes. He had already decided that he was going to sign it, but he refused to give this pompous pile of blubber what he wanted. Even if it cost him a week, he was going to make this failed narwhal _pay_! 

-

Resorting to demon summoning wasn’t something Wallace was proud of. He’d always prided himself on getting by through hard work and sacrifice, not through shortcuts. He wasn’t going to sell out to get a pale imitation of his dream – he would build it all with his bare flippers if he had to! He was going to have his ship and his crew someday. All he had to do was keep working at it.  
What a farce that had turned out to be. It wasn’t the hard workers that clawed their way to the top, but the opportunists, and Wallace had been too proud to do things the successful way. It just wasn’t him, to kick others down so he could climb up. That wasn’t how he wanted to achieve his dream, but now that he was slowly approaching retirement age… he was starting to regret. 

He was old, and he wasn’t going to get anything unless he reached out and took it for himself. In his foolish attempts to get rich doing things fair and square, he’d worn out his body quicker than most. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to go back to working on a ship unless he was the one at the wheel barking the orders. It was meagre retirement and broken dreams… or this.  
He had taken his time to research. With his pension providing enough money to live from, he’d found himself with more spare time than he knew what to do with. Time that he’d spend well. He had taken every possible countermeasure that he’d been able to find, and he was certain that both his body and mind were safe. 

He leisurely puffed away on his cigarettes as the shadowy creature in the summoning circle leafed through the contract. Just as the books had said, it wore a permanent fanged smile, and had quite a dangerous temperament. But judging by how its smile grew flatter and flatter as it read the contract, Wallace had done a good job in making a loop-hole free deal.  
It finished reading the contract in a frighteningly fast time – Wallace had expected to keep the demon in his home for at least a day – but he could have expected that from a demon that wrote contracts for fun. It reread it a few times, flipped back and forth between pages of interest… And then it summoned an ink-dipped feather. 

Wallace sat up straighter in his chair, feeling the hairs on his upper lip stand up. “… You gonna sign?”

The demon narrowed its eyes at him. It seemed calmer than before, but there was no disguising the pure loathing that was coming from those fiery eyes. “No, actually, I was about to use this feather to tickle the contract into being less _obnoxious_! Yes, I’m about to sign. But before I do… are you sure you don’t want to change something? Remove a little clause here or there, add a semicolon? You know there’s no take-backsies on a thing like this! Why not add in a little extra? Treat yourself!”

Wallace narrowed his eyes. “I’m not changin’ anything. You sign it, or you’re stuck.”

The demon’s mouth twitched, if only slightly, and the feather pen moved over the contract on its own – putting the demon’s name ( or whatever it used to sign ) right next to Wallace’s. The floating stack of paper turned around, and Wallace leaned forward to see the signature at the bottom. 

“There. Now, let me go!” 

There was always the chance it could go awry, that he’d missed something after all, but Wallace had spent years perfecting the contract and he was ready to take that final step. He let the demon out. 

\- 

It had taken longer than Snatcher would have liked to find some kind of loophole. The walrus had done everything in his power to protect himself, and halfway through Snatcher had had to give up on his plans to destroy the snotty lardbeast. He’d had to give up on causing indirect harm, eating/stealing his soul, or ruining his wish.  
The walrus was going to get his stupid ship, and his stupid crew, no matter how much Snatcher scrutinised the text on the contract. It was going to take an incredibly amount of his spiritual energy to make it happen and it might even allow Vanessa to retake some of his territory and begin wandering around outside her creepy little house again. Just. Magical. 

But Snatcher hadn’t spent all his years as a soul-hungry spirit without learning how to be extremely, awfully, ridiculously petty. Even in something as dry and bland as a well-written contract, there were things of a personal nature hidden, and Snatcher was going to be as contrary as the contract allowed him to.  
From what little Snatcher could tell of this guy, he wanted a majestic and sea-worthyship that could sail beyond the horizon for years on end. Stuffed sharks on the walls, a sexy maiden statue out front, that kind of stuff. The crew he probably envisioned was one of fellow Walruses or cold-water creatures. Big teeth, lots of blubber and scars, all hardened by the tough life out in the icy cold Antarctic sea… Of course, all a perfect fit for his personality, and the building blocks for a well-oiled team of sailormen. 

He’d never specified the age of his crew. He’d assumed that the ‘competence’ clause would take care of that little detail. He’d never specified their species either, or direct mannerisms, or the exact definition of ‘competent’ in the relation to ship keeping. Similarly, he’d specified a lot of things about the ship, just not the way it was going to look – or what it was going to be built to do. 

As Snatcher let his carefully collected power drain out to shape the walrus’ dream boat, he used every loophole he had been able to find. This thing was never going to be a compact efficient craft with a tightly knit crew. It was going to be a large and gaudy luxury cruise boat – wired and created in a way that would cost bags full of money to keep running, and littered with mechanical and design defects! Manned by a crew that could handle it all just fine….but only if they communicated and worked in groups of five at a time.  
They would never betray their captain, but there was nothing in the contract about being insufferably naïve and childlike! Ohh, and they were going to have an accent. The worst kind. The most insufferably cutesy stuff Snatcher could think of – and the exact opposite of what that stinking walrus was looking for. 

To rub extra salt in the wound, he made sure that Mr. Walrus’ ship didn’t have docking rights when he created it. By the time lard-butt dragged himself over to his new ship, he’d already be shoulder-deep in bills! 

By the time Snatcher was done creating it all, he felt as if he’d done a bloodletting. The world seemed to spin slowly and every light had a weird trailing effect. The last thing to create were the keys that started the ship’s engines, complete with a keychain of a cute white little seal. He hoped that it would burn the walrus’ eyes every time he pulled it out of his pocket.  
“Knock. Yourself. Out.” He snarled by way as a goodbye, and he threw the set of keys at the walrus before using the remains of his power to return home. 

Once he was back, he collapsed into his chair like an overcooked noodle, and checked how far Vannessa had invaded upon his forest. Just as he had expected, the icy walls keeping her locked had begun to shape doors and windows, and the frost had spread far enough to cross the broken bridge. Snatcher groaned.He hadn’t slept in years, but the urge to close his eyes and take a rest was overwhelming. He decided to indulge. Pushing back the hag and figuring out a way to prevent this from happening again could wait until tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I got this idea when I played the first chapter of Arctic cruise and saw just how exhausted and annoyed the captain seemed with his crew and his job. He definitely looked like a captain, and like he WANTED to be a captain -... just not of this overgrown gaudy caviar-float. So, I thought; "Why not make a fic out of this?"
> 
> Obviously, I wrote the fic before I got to level three of Arctic cruise. The clause about the ship being unsinkable and indestructible still holds up though! Even though the ship is on its side and not operating well anymore, it's not broken, and it's still staying partially above the water - so as far as Snatcher is concerned he has DONE HIS JOB. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
